John Anthony Miller

Cape May, N.J. 1976

When NYC editor Audrey Taylor finalizes her divorce, it seems as if her entire world has collapsed around her. And when she inherits a run-down Victorian mansion in a decaying N.J. beach town, it only seems to get worse. At least, until she finds the treasure map.

The Widow’s Walk is a tale of growth, self-discovery, and learning to appreciate all the good that life has to offer. A romance wrapped in a historical subplot, a mystery hidden in a centuries-old crime, it ties two unsuspecting people together to find a love that neither expected—which is far more precious than buried treasure could ever be.

Bar Harbor, Maine: summer of 1967

When Billie Cooper receives a startling medical diagnosis just before a summer-long vacation, she decides to keep it secret. Her husband Derek is a Defense Department official immersed in the Vietnam war effort. Her two sons are backpacking through Europe. She can’t burden them. She has to face the issue alone.

She settles into a beautiful house on a hundred-foot-high cliff just south of Bar Harbor. With her husband often in Washington, D.C., Billie befriends a part-time cook named Lillian Moore. Of Native American heritage, Lillian introduces her to ancient remedies in a desperate attempt to cure what might never be cured. Billie also befriends a senile neighbor, Riley James, a lonely but lovable man who tells preposterous stories and lives in a crooked cottage by the sea, as well as three young girls who joyfully play in a secret fort hidden in nearby woods. This mismatched band of friends, and the clues contained in an overgrown family cemetery, teach Billie the meaning of life, helping her see what she had never before seen. She touches the hearts and souls of those around her, just as they touch hers, friendships formed for eternity.

The Eastern Shore of Maryland, 1857

Naomi Banks, mistress of Hickory Hill, is a pillar of society, respected by all, envied by many. But she has a secret, never revealed. She killed her first husband, twenty-five years before. And when a ghost from her past invades the present, her entire existence is threatened, forcing a battle she never expected to fight.

Set on a large plantation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, The Secrets of Hickory Hill, features a complex cast of characters: Naomi’s daughter Annabelle and the two men who court her—shipbuilder Adrian Reed and politician Artemis Wentworth, the slaves of Hickory Hill—Phoebe, Coffey Green, and Billy Giles—Amish families who shelter runaways—Jacob Yoder and Samuel Zook, and the lawmen who chase them, Sheriff Dodd and slavecatcher Amos Quigg. And then there’s Zeb Payne, the man who knows Naomi’s secret.

The Secrets of Hickory Hill is a sprawling epic of the Antebellum South, laced with murder, intrigue, deceit, and disaster.

EMMA KEENE’S DIARY

The island of Jersey, 1960:

After the death of her uncle, movie star Margo Keene returns to the island of Jersey to sell her family’s cottage. While an eight-year-old child during WWII, she had been evacuated to London with most of the island’s children just before the Germans invaded. As the war raged and she was raised by adoptive parents, her mother and father were both killed during the enemy occupation. Her mother Emma was a traitor who betrayed her husband and many others—killed by someone she wronged while colluding with the enemy. Her father Percy was a war hero who served in the island’s government while clandestinely fighting the Nazis—but was eventually caught and executed. It was an embarrassing history for a movie star, kept secret from her adoring fans by her employer, London Studios. But it was a story she had been told repeatedly. She had never doubted it. She had no reason to.

Until she finds her mother’s diary…